Lord Grep’s Sunday Supplement.

Yey, I made it for Sunday this time, and I have something semi intelligent to talk about too, what ever next eh, so let’s jump right in to this one…

First off, I want to talk about something I mentioned in a post yesterday. It’s about a word that some despise but I don’t; “Community”.

A long time ago on AVEN I mentioned how depressing it is that AVEN isn’t one. It feels like there is no internal trust in the group, there is nothing that ties people together. It seems to lack a common ground of shared experience.

In most communities, that is communities of Identity, like people of colour, the disabled, homosexuals, they have words than bind them, sometimes slurs that they repatriate, there are ‘in jokes’, some times just a way of saying things that are a bit insulting to one another, or banter, where everyone knows it’s just banter Also people just talk, and everyone interprets each others words in the way they were intended.

I thought it was the whole asexual community that was devoid of camaraderie, and understanding, that was until I started AS-NS. I discovered that it’s not the community, it’s just AVEN. This is not meant to be an advert for AS-NS here, as I have started to see this creep in to AS-NS, and it is something I want to nip in the bud right away. I want to get it out of AVEN too. I am not saying that the only answer is AS-NS. I am just saying how it is.. SEE – I AM DOING IT NOW, this illustrates exactly what I mean. Every time I write something I have to think about what a few loud mouthed witch hunters will say about my words. I can’t just say things and expect people to just read them with trust.

What is worse is that this behaviour of witch hunting is not just accepted within AVEN, it seems to be encouraged by the very rules, and the system of discipline. This holier than thou, virtue signalling, witch hunting is just wrong. Constantly trying to seek out and then try and oust people the whole time is something as a community we should be intolerant of. Those that fight for tolerance, need to be tolerant of those with different opinions, uses of language, and humour. Do people not realise that Hating hate… Is HATE.

People really need to get behind the idea that we are an asexual community, and there are many people from many different backgrounds, religions, abilities, and political persuasions who are part of it. To just have people basically being told constantly that they are not welcome in the community because of the smallest breaches in etiquette is appalling, and not just that but siding with, and holding in esteem those who go out of their way to get their fellow community members disciplined for the slightest breach all the time is just all kinds of wrong.

I keep asking myself “Why don’t those that are most vocal on some of the most antaganistic issues on AVEN come and debate, people on AS-NS where there are no rules”, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that we do not have that sort of society, and without the tools to virtue signal, and kick people out of a community they are not interested in taking part. What is the point when there is no audience?

I have seen this sort of behaviour before, and it was in the old hippy communities I used to be in when I was road protesting. The virtue signalers om that community were the “Vegan Police” as I used to refer to them.

I at the time was Vegi/vegan, and there was a bunch of people who would sit about all day and do nothing at all. Well apart from get stoned,and steal everyones tobacco. But they would constantly tell other people how they were doing things wrong in their lives, and again the worst thing was that people would agree with them all the time, it was like a fucking religion. Some of the shit thay came out with was just so fucked up. They stopped our drumming (I am a damn good djembe player) because they said it would disturb the rare night jars (a bird) that was living in the trees (that were months away from being cut down). And people would go along with this shit.

When it came to cooking things, We used to go skipping, (getting food out of dumpsters) and these guys would complain and only use suff they had stolen from health food shops, They stole so they could have organic food, and then they would bitch at some of us for eating things like cheese and yogurt that was thrown out.. I used to argue that I am not encouraging anything, I am not adding to the production of things here. If I had not eaten it, the damn thing would be land fill. These arguments went on and on.

As I said before these people would do NOTHING all day, and not contribute to anything, and there was a lot of work to do trying to build tree houses, and getting things up in the treetops.

One day I was finishing off this massive cargo net that connected 5 tree houses together (I called it the internet, long story, another time maybe), any way. I was climbing a tree like I had done every day, and one of these vegan policemen came along and started giving me shit saying “You shouldn’t climb trees with shoes on, you are hurting the tree”. Now I usually was barefoot BUT tree climbing with ropes, and the like, you need a sold boot.. This guy had been with us for a month and never climbed a tree in his life, and this camp was supposed to be to prepare tree houses for people to come in and occupy..(Thats what these guys were doing, we kinda expected them to help build the damn things, but they didn’t like scaring the squirrels or some such shit).

The next thing was, everyone else at this camp started to agree with him, and they were all fucking part time hippies, and lunchouts, who did fuck all, and suddenly I have about 5 people shouting abuse at me for not climbing a tree barefoot… I mean no one has ever climbed a tree barefoot, you would really hurt yourself in the strapping.

I got mad..

I walked off..

I went in to town,

I went to the supermarket…

I bought gammon, bacon, and sausages, and beans….

I brought them back to the camp, and said “I am cooking tonight,I brought out my huge wok, (a friend stole it from a Chinese restaurant while it was open, again a story for another time).

I got this wok out, and threw in all my goodies (I had not eaten meat for about 4 years I was about 18 at the time), and the place went NUTs… everyone was swearing at me and giving me shit.

Someone threatened to kill me, to which I replied “That’s not very fucking Vegan”, and I just said “I have had enough. I can’t live up to your standards, so I will just live up to my own”. I would like to say that they stopped being fucking dicks, but they didn’t, and I left that site about two weeks later…

The end to this story I think sums them up perfectly.

We spent months building all the defences and the tree houses and everything, it was in the end an amazing place.After I left a load of new people came in, a weeks worth of help from some charity outdoor people, it was fantastic, and so they were then left to actually do the occupying, the living up in the trees… The police though, took over the whole site without having to evict anyone at all.. They just waited for the day they all got their social money, and they went to the pub, no one was in the trees and police just walked in and that was that.

What is the moral of this story? Well it could be, “Don’t be a dick”, it could be, “Be better organised”, What I want to share with you is that when the priority of your group is just to find people to expose, as not part of your group, or all you ever do is label everyone as an enemy, you are not a community that will last very long, and not one that will ever learn anything new, or be together.

There will be a small core of people that bitch and moan, and a HUGE through put of people who stay a while and then just leave. Take a look at AVEN… Isn’t that what has been going on for a year or more? Look, just look at the users verses the active users. Look at how many people say hello, and that is the last thing they say.

How do you make AVEN more like a community where people just accept each other, flaws, politics and all? The only real way I think is to make policies that discourage that sort of behaviour, and discipline those that are anti social, and judgmental towards people of differing backgrounds. Though it has to be said that in reality what is required is from the top down an attitude that wants to build a community for real, and not just a club that focuses on handing out warnings, and nudges for the slightest transgression.

I guess it comes down to the definition of “Anti social”. What is more anti social? To write something that is clearly meant as no harm at all, but can be interpreted in such a way as that someone can take a tiny bit of offence. Or to follow people about and find every little thing they can find wrong with their posts and report them, and use your own alleged life story to claim the highest degree of offence?

Now I know people will argue the toss over things, but I am just trying to illustrate a point here, and that is does AVEN want to be a community, Or rather do WE want to be a community, or a constant examination of ones thoughts, and writing skills.

Every time I write anything I feel like I am taking an exam, and I will find out in a week if I passed, because I won’t get one of those “After a lot of consideration – you is banned” emails.

Ok some people don’t get the magnifying glass as much as I do, but the attitude is there, and it’s time that we as a community of asexuals started to come together as that, and not a community of “Speech and Thought Police”, Perhaps we should give them a name:

All it takes to end this cycle is for people to want a community based on asexuality, and accept the fact that we are an incredibly diverse group, and trying to change people all the time to fit in with your own life standards and beliefs is not the way you make friends.

As For AS-NS, I am happy with the way it is going, though as I said I am slightly concerned that the attitude of virtue signalling is creeping in a bit, but I am confident that it will figure it’s self out, as we are growing slowly, and we are a very diverse bunch. My message to all the good folk of AS-NS is “Please lets be a community that can disagree with things, and debate things as vigorously as you want, but lets please remember that all the people, are people, and everyone has the potential to be a genius, but equally we can all be total morons (Will that get me in to trouble)?

Well… I was going to talk about election coverage, but I am not going to bother as I have farted on here for way to long as it is… We have two [elections] to look forward to soon, and it could be very interesting… We know that AS-NS will be fielding a candidate (as in backing one) but we at Ace Times will do our best to be fair this time round… Last time we admit we were a bit naughty, we hope you will forgive us..

Have a Great Week…

[ED]

PS: The after party for this story is over on AS-NS HERE
So if you want to come and discuss any of the issues
Grep will be available to chat with.